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Donald Trump halts golf course construction due to ‘ugly’ wind farm threat
Credit: The Telegraph, www.telegraph.co.uk 18 January 2012 ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump has put work on hold at his luxury golf resort in Scotland until a decision is made on an offshore wind farm proposal near the site.
The postponement came as plans for a five-star clubhouse at the site in Aberdeenshire were approved by the local council yesterday.
The Trump Organisation said any future work, including the building of a hotel, will now depend on the decision made by the Scottish Government regarding the application for the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre.
A statement from the Trump Organisation said: “If the north east of Scotland is serious about tourism and creating a global golf destination, it cannot allow the coastline to be ruined by an ugly industrial park – 11 64-storey test turbines – directly off the shoreline.”
A planning application for an 11-turbine wind farm off Aberdeen Bay was submitted to Marine Scotland last summer.
The proposal is a £150 million joint venture by utility company Vattenfall, engineering firm Technip and Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group.
The US tycoon has previously written to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond twice objecting to the offshore proposal.
In September he said the turbines were “disastrous and environmentally irresponsible”, and left an “ugly cloud hanging over the future of the great Scottish coastline”.
Mr Trump’s £750 million development on the Menie estate on the Aberdeenshire coast is nearing completion after work began in 2010. The organisation said it intends to open the championship golf course ahead of schedule at the end of June.
Local resident David Milne has protested against the development of the golf course and urged the Government to go ahead with the wind farm proposal.
He said: “Yesterday, just hours after being granted planning permission for one of the ugliest buildings in Aberdeenshire, the Trump Organisation stated that they might be pulling out of this damaging and destructive project at Menie.
“The bluff is based around the European Offshore Wind Development Centre and its location off the Aberdeenshire coast and is back to the usual ‘them or us’ argument.
“It is one failing golf course project versus an entire industry; an industry that has allowed Aberdeen to become one the busiest and most successful cities in the UK for the last 30 years and has the potential to keep Aberdeen thriving for the next hundred years if allowed to develop and grow as it should.
“So the choice is simple: it is between the children of the country growing up to be bed-changers and grass-cutters or growing up with the opportunity to be engineers, designers, developers and builders, along with the slew of unskilled trades that all real industry brings with it.
“The answer is quite clear – goodbye, golf course.
“I ask those with the authority to call his bluff and let him walk away.”
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